Her Boys
by Beboppin' Betty
Summary: Kirsten reflects on her boys.


My ambitions in life were never centred around motherhood. True, I always knew that at one point in my life I'd inevitably get married and have a couple of kids, but I never gave the idea a second thought.

And then it actually happened.

I was barely twenty-four, newly married, and just out of college. And I was grossly unprepared for all of it. Through the haze of labour I decided that I didn't want any of it -- not my ridiculously amazing husband, not the tiny little apartment we shared in Berkeley, and certainly not the writhing, squalling kid I was pushing out.

When they handed me that little baby, I felt a tug at my heart -- but I was still unsure. True, he was adorable with his mop of dark hair, but even that didn't sway me. Then he opened his big eyes and stared at me, and _that_ was the moment I fell in love with my son and vowed to embrace motherhood until my dying day.

For every two a.m. feeding and nasty diaper, every scraped knee and ear infection, I reminded myself of that moment when I fell in love with him. On his first day of school I cried like a baby and vowed never to have another child.

As Seth grew up, I wasn't there as much as I should have been. Work became my new baby. But I did keep a close eye on my son's life, and my heart continually broke for him. He just didn't fit in at Newport, and it was all the kids who knew it first. They shunned him and he retreated into his own little world filled with comics and videogames and sailing.

It killed me to see him so alone, either ignored or insulted by the very people who should have been thrilled to have someone as different and unique as Seth in their cookie-cutter world.

But instead of telling him that, I just bought him more videogames and buried myself in my work. Once in awhile, when I surfaced from the endless contracts and blueprints to see my son miserable in the world I'd created for him, I began to doubt my skills as a mother. Maybe it just wasn't cut out for me. Then one day, totally out of the blue, my tenuous grip on motherhood was tested again.

I didn't know it right then, but that was the day I gained another son.

All I could think about was the fact that he was a stray delinquent that Sandy had brought into our home, and then -- I don't know exactly when -- I realized what an amazing person Ryan was. He changed the lives of everyone he met, and was the best thing that ever happened to Seth. Ryan became Seth's best friend, his brother. Kind of his saviour. Different as my boys are, they're the same in their status as outcasts.

Of course, outcast in Newport-speak is synonymous with different_._

That's one of the things I love most about both of them. Neither Seth nor Ryan ever tried to become part of the Abercrombie crowd (the fact that I know Seth says that is totally a point in my favour). I like different. It's the reason I moved to Berkeley; the reason I picked Sandy instead of Jimmy.

I didn't like that trouble literally seemed to seek the guys out, but the fact that Ryan had gotten Seth to take a few risks instead of watching from the sidelines almost made it better. Like with Summer. If Ryan hadn't come along, Seth would never have gotten the girl of his dreams.

For the first time in his life, Seth was happy, and Ryan was too, I think. They had their girls, and they had each other. And them being happy and relatively carefree made me happy.

God, I miss them.

Suddenly, they weren't happy and carefree anymore. Ryan knocked up some girl he knew from Chino and decided to 'do the responsible thing' and go back. He left his future and his family for a girl who may or may not have been carrying his child, all because I talked her out of an abortion. Ryan left, and that made Seth miserable, so he left me too.

Now my huge, impractical house stands virtually empty and cold. I can't bear to go into Seth's room or Ryan's pool house; both remind me too much of what I've lost. It makes me long for the cramped Berkeley place, small but full of life.

I do everything I can to not think about them, just for seconds at a time, but it's useless. I don't want to not think about them. My boys. My sons.

I know now that I was not cut out for motherhood. If I was, my children wouldn't have left me.

They're out there all alone now, my boys, and it's all my fault.

My only consolation is that I know that when the time comes, they will become amazing men.

......................................................................................................................................................

_Disclaimer: _I own nothing you recognize from the show.

Reviews are what I write for, so don't forget to do it!


End file.
